As reports gather around Utrecht loanee/Rangers flop Sam Lammers and a potential switch to FC Twente, it’s brought the summer deal back into sharp focus.
Rangers forked out a reported £3.5m to sign the 26-year-old from Serie A side Atalanta, Michael Beale playing Football Manager with a player he’d long held admiration for.
But the deal came back to bite the English manager who – against the backdrop of a series of stuttering signings – was eventually shown the door by the Ibrox club.
Philippe Clement too, despite initially giving Sam Lammers first-team exposure, also failed to harness the best of an enigmatic player whose clear talent is at times overwhelmingly superseded by his nerves.
Farmed out on loan to Utrecht, the striker’s short time in the Netherlands is said to be turning heads and it’s a good thing for Rangers too as they look to soften what at the moment stands to be a sizeable loss.
Sam Lammers linked to FC Twente
There has been plenty of chatter about unconfirmed ‘reports in the Netherlands’ linking Sam Lammers with FC Twente.
These reports have then popped up on the continent, claiming ‘reports in Scotland’ have actually broken the story.
In the often circular world of transfer reporting, throwaway lines, print media, podcasts, or even post-match analysis are often enough to form the foundations of stories.
Things can often get lost in translation, especially without context.
For what it’s worth, the foundation of these claims appear to stem from comments made by Dutch journalist Leon ten Voorde on Tubantia’s De Ballen Verstand podcast.
As translated here, Ten Voorde revealed both Sam Lammers and fellow Utrecht loanee Ryan Flamingo were FC Twente targets in the summer and could be on the club’s shortlist in the upcoming window.
But whilst an original source for these claims continues to allude those who regurgitate them, well, at least most of them, the situation fails to alter Sam Lammers’s transfer reality.
As things stand, the striker is set to return to Rangers at the end of the season with the Ibrox side believed to want £2.5m to free the Dutchman from the final three years of his contract.
Rangers could use summer transfer boost
It’s just as well then that Sam Lammers has impressed whilst returning to the Netherlands with Utrecht.
Having run out 1-0 winners against, you guessed it, FC Twente at the weekend, Jens Toornstra might’ve scored the only goal of the game but Sam Lammers led the line with aplomb.
Handed the number 9 shirt with Utrecht, Lammers has three assists and one goal in six Eredivisie games with the former PSV and Heerenveen striker enjoying a positive homecoming.
A return to Rangers is incredibly unlikely and the Ibrox support will hope that come the summer, the club is recouping as close to the £3.5m paid for Lammers as possible.
Philippe Clement and Nils Koppen are tasked with ensuring such signings are consigned to the history books and in the tight world of football transfers, they’re going to need all the cash they can get.
